Washing machine advice - I'm looking for a reliable washer

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omnivac7000

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Good day everyone!

I'm fed up with modern washers. Everything today seems like garbage. They break down and they don't wash very well.
I currently have a Speed Queen and the balancers are plastic and they get shredded and wind up in the wash. It is only 3 years old; they said it would last 20.

So, I'm looking for a washer that can handle lots of towels, cleans well and is reliable. I assume there's an old popular model out there with parts that are obtainable. I just don't know what to look for or where to find it.
Is this possible?
What model(s) do you suggest I look for?
The model can be from 1950s up to whenever they still made reliable washers!
Thank you,
 
Hi!

Any Whirlpool DD (the ones with the rubber puck between the motor and the transmission), any Maytag before the 'Performa' junk.
Any GE Filter-Flo after 1959 (pump re-design).
Any Speed Queen before 2018 (sadly, the 2018/2019 Speed Queens were the only time they abandoned quality for trash. I have been assured their current offerings are back to the old standards, don't believe a word of it. Our 1969 Speed Queen works perfectly.)

Lorain Furniture has many youtube videos on excellent machines from the era your are considering. I have bought parts from him and was totally satisfied. His member name, here, is LorainFurniture.
 
A Whirlpool/Kenmore Direct Drive or a Maytag washer built from 1966 to 2006 will be your best bet since either can go for many years with little to no trouble other then motor coupler and agitator dogs on the Whirlpool direct drive washer.

The only downside is Whirlpool discontinued parts for the neutral drain pack in the direct drive washers since they’re evil, and might even discontinue motor couplers as well to force people into buying another machine since again they are evil, but I don’t think Whirlpool will discontinue the agitator dogs since many of their entry level belt drive washers (not to get confused with the belt drives made before 1986) use the same agitators as the direct drives did.

If you really want a reliable washer, a wringer is your best bet since there aren’t any timers to wear out or spin bearings to wear out but will require time and patience since there is manual labor involved since you have to manually wring the water out and will have to move the clothes to a rinse bucket and wring them out again if you are going to use a clothes line or dryer.
 
One should always get

Either donor machines and strip them for parts and order new parts which get used up or wear out when one finds a vintage washer.
The two neutral drain packs are soon going to be a bit harder to find - on the other hand, I have never had one fail. Those hockey pucks, well, buy the commercial kit and the commercial clutch and be done with it.
Whirlpool designed these washers too well, so they had to build in parts to fail every eight years or so.
 
Wow!
Thank you very much!
This is more than I expected.
I'll try to find some used washers near me and I'll run the models by you, if you don't mind.
I also was toying with the idea of getting a wringer but I would prefer to just throw clothes in the dryer and be done with it!
Thanks again,
P.S. I'll most likely create a duplicate question only for dishwashers but the forum wanted to keep everything separate. I'm actually more disappointed with my maytag dishwasher! it's way worse than the 15 year old kitchenaide that came with the house! lulz
 
I am curious though of this Speed Queen you have....

and would like to see pics of this balancer that is shredding apart.....never heard of such a thing...

willing to bet Alliance would want that machine back to investigate as to what happened....

the only time I have ever seen a balance ring get damaged is from a FL spider breaking and causing the front part of the tub to rub against the shroud...
 
That speed Queen is still under warranty.

If it’s only 3 years old it’s under warranty. Never heard of the balance ring on a speed Queen failing either. Post a pic, be interesting to see!
 
The SQ is still under warranty; 7 years left on a 10 year.
I'm not sure what the issue is. the repairman won't be here until Friday.
I'll watch him take it apart and go over my options. I'm not going to be happy if the part is just going to break again in 3 years...
I found a lot of shredded plastic in the drum and stuck between the top of the drum and the outer ring. So something disintegrated in there.
I did a GIS for shredded plastic in SQ and the best match I could find was that the SQ was getting out of balance and grinding against the bellows?. I never heard it make any noise. Every time I checked on it, you could barely hear any noise from it.
I didn't think I was overloading the wash but again, I really don't know what the issue is yet.
I'll reply after Friday when I get more information.

pic#1 some of the shredded white plastic pieces. there were larger pieces that I threw away.
pic#2 I don't know if you can see it, but there's plenty of finer plastic debris still stuck to the top of the rim on the right. so something in between there is getting destroyed.

omnivac7000-2021110318374503964_1.jpg

omnivac7000-2021110318374503964_2.jpg
 
 
There is a service bulletin (FB19-1 dated Jan 2019) for SQ toploaders specifically circa 2018 (no model numbers stated) with stainless steel baskets regards to the basket balance ring contacting the tub cover during spin, indicated by damage/wear to both the surface of the balance ring and the tub cover*.

Fix is to replace the balance ring (P/N 39837), tub cover (P/N depends on the specific model), and wash tub (P/N 719P3, which presumably is the SS basket, not the outer tub).

*If only the tub cover is damaged then the problem is presumed due to user error such as gross overloading resulting in clothing items contacting the tub cover.
 
I sort of have an update.
The repairman won't be here until Tuesday because the parts won't be in this week.
They are going to replace the balance ring at the top even though they haven't looked at my washer yet.
And they said they have seen this problem before and are pretty sure how to fix it.
I'm more concerned about it happening again...
The wife and I are pretty sure we do NOT overload the drum; the clothes are always well below the rim.
I'll ask them next week and the hunt for a new dishwasher continues...
Stay tuned...
 
Follow the repair per the bulletin

The tech needs to follow the tech bulletin speed queen put out about the issue otherwise it will happen again.

Bulletin:(FB19-1 dated Jan 2019)

Updated parts (including parts numbers of revised parts) required are listed in post 11 by DADoEs.

This will prevent repeat failure. Speed Queen quality control has identified a problem and has updated parts to fix it, all parts affected by the update in the bulletin must be replaced to prevent repeat failure. Your tech seems to just be guessing, which is bad.

Speed Queen puts out bulletins for repairs to prevent repeat failures when revised parts or procedures are available, techs who don't follow bulletins cause repeat failures that get blamed on the company as a 'crap product'.

We had a bulletin on our Speed Queen, they had a revised torque for the drum pulley nut. at 7 loads of laundry 3X a week, Pulley began making noise after 7 months and I found the bulletin. First tech knew about the bulletin, performed it but didn't torque it to the revised spec, same problem happened again in less than 3 months. I tightened it myself to the revised torque and its still perfect to this day,!

Have him follow the bulletin as Speed Queen engineers wrote it and it wont happen again.

Keith
 
Agreed!
Do you know where I can download those bulletins? I saw one for the balance ring and FB19-13 which says there's a balance switch issue.
I can only see the titles not the details...
At the very least, I'll try to get the repairman to give me the bulletins.
Hopefully, he'll read them.
Thanks!
I greatly appreciate all of the support here!
 
I'm having zero luck finding any vintage washers near me.
The only GE washing machine I've found near me is this model for $25
WDRR2500K3WW
I can't seem to locate the year it was made or any specifications.
I assume this one is garbage but I thought I would ask.
Is there a list of vintage GE models to make my search easier?
Thanks,
 

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